


When the Sunlight Hits Your Cheek

by charlesdarwininthetardis



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, How's that for a fun mix of tags, Isolation, Loss, Quarantine, Tragedy, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlesdarwininthetardis/pseuds/charlesdarwininthetardis
Summary: I feel his urgency now. I’m also searching his eyes, trying to glean any meaning from them, but to no avail. I can’t read anything in them except increasingly frantic desperation. “What? What do you-”I want him to spit it out, to tell me whatever it is before we run out of time.But words are too slow.
Kudos: 3





	When the Sunlight Hits Your Cheek

**Author's Note:**

> For @c0leby_jack. I wish it didn't take the end of the world to throw us together and then wrench us back apart again.

His hand is warm in mine. It feels solid. Real. 

If nothing else, I know that.

I grip his hand as we walk through the golden field in companionable silence. The field felt endless, golden sunlight reflecting off stalks of wheat as far as the eye could see, and there we are, alone together in the middle of it. Night might be falling soon, but as far as I’m concerned, this could last forever.

I feel him watching me, and sure enough, when I glance up at his face, I see his radiant green eyes earnestly searching mine between the sunbeams.

_ When the sunlight hits your cheek... _

I ignore the tugging thought and smile at him, embarrassed, cautious, but he doesn’t smile back. Instead, my uncertain look triggers something else in him as his eyes take on a hint of insistence.

“Rebekah-” he begins to whisper, somewhat urgently.

**_Low Power._ **

Wait, no. Not now. Not when we still-

“Rebekah, I need to tell you something before-”

I feel his urgency now as the light around us turns a threatening red. I’m also searching his eyes now, trying to glean any meaning from them, but to no avail. I can’t read anything in them except increasingly frantic desperation. “What? What do you-” 

I want him to spit it out, to tell me whatever it is before we run out of time. But words are too slow.

He clutches my hand, tighter, as if he could communicate his message through my skin, as if he feels this too. “I need you to remember-”

**_Power Depleted._ **

NO! Nonononono. I need to know what he-

And he vanished, leaving me only with one final, fleeting image of him, his curly chestnut hair waving gently in the wind, his strong jaw struck by the setting sun as he lets out a sigh of despair, his hand reaching towards me as he realized we were finally, really, truly out of time.

I need to know what he wanted to say to me.

And now I never will.

Because I am alone, clutching only a broken virtual reality mask connected to my last depleted battery, sitting in a cold, grey box at the end of the universe, at the end of time. I slump down on the ground and stare at the mask, slowly turning it in my hands, forced to face the reality that I am stuck here with no chance of escape, either physical or virtual. I am trapped here, buried underground in this tomb with only a limited supply of essentials in a vain effort to save me from what’s above in the hopes that when it’s all over, someone, somewhere, would eventually find me and bring me back into the light.

But you and I both know that’s never going to happen. And you and I both know that what we had never could have lasted. I had limited supplies; I even had a warning. But I didn’t think I would run out of time so soon.

That’s irony for you. I ran out of time for the one thing that still matters to me, even though I have all of the time in the world. All of the time in the world to think about irony, about the past, about warnings I was too foolish to heed...

_ When the sunlight hits your cheek, you’ll be taken away from me. _

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a small short story challenge at the beginning of Quarantine, the prompt for which was "Isolation" for, um, reasons. 
> 
> It's six months later and somehow both everything and nothing is different. And I'm dipping my toes back into creative writing, so I figured I'd dust this off and put it out somewhere that's a little more public than my Google Drive. 
> 
> Thanks to @CorundumBleu for telling me about this challenge and convincing me to get off my butt and actually create some art during a week where my entire world fell apart.


End file.
